Teaching in Taichung

We have almost finished our first week of teaching. We knew it would be tiring and a difficult initial adjustment and it has met those expectations... but I think we can both say that we are really happy with how things have gone so far! 

I remind myself that in all of our observations - when we get to watch another teacher/trainer show us how it should be done - we have been watching “5 star veterans” and for us to hold ourselves to the same yardstick in the first week of teaching is a very unfair expectation. Nevertheless, after each class you can’t help but forget what went well and ponder on why was that one kid so disinterested or was my activity boring or did I teach the grammar pattern well enough, etc. I know we will get better at teaching and we mustn’t be hard on ourselves for the first little while. 

With all the lesson prep we haven’t had too much time to do any exploring just yet. Pretty much the only parts of Taichung we have seen have been while walking between home and our branches. 

Fortunately we live right by a Carrefour and an A-mart so we have been able to pick up a few essentials to help us get set up in our apartment. Our most extravagant purchase so far has been a fancy Philips blender that we will use to make all kinds of fruit smoothies. 

In a few weeks we will receive our ARCs (Alien Resident Cards) and at that point we will be in the market for a scooter! We plan to buy just one for the two of us and so we will be looking for a 150cc engine. I can’t wait to have the scooter. It will be a few days at least until I’m comfortable taking a passenger on the back (Amanda!) but once at that point, it will really broaden our horizons. We can see the mountains so clearly from our apartment window... I can’t wait to go exploring. 

There aren’t any touristy pictures yet for me to share, so this one is just a picture of the view out of our living room window.